


Their Last Vows

by vitruvianwatson (keepyoureyesfixedonme)



Series: Tumblr Ficlets [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Confessions, Fluff, M/M, Tiny bit of Angst, Weddings, there's only barely a need for the mature rating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2016-11-08
Packaged: 2018-08-29 18:56:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8501470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keepyoureyesfixedonme/pseuds/vitruvianwatson
Summary: The morning before their wedding John wakes up at the crack of dawn in bed alone.  He pulls on a pair of pants and goes to see where Sherlock’s gone.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for [my tumblr](http://vitruvianwatson.tumblr.com) a long time ago, and I thought maybe it deserved its own slot on Ao3, so here we are.

The morning before their wedding John wakes up at the crack of dawn in bed alone. He pulls on a pair of pants and goes to see where Sherlock’s gone.  He finds him standing at the window in the sitting room, wearing only his pajama pants, his violin held loosely at his side as if he’d been thinking of playing it and had forgotten once he’d noticed the swirling snow falling outside.  John walks up behind him, wrapping his arms around his middle and pressing a kiss between his shoulder blades, the skin there still warm despite the chill seeping in through the window.  Sherlock hums quietly, and John’s not sure if it’s because of the kiss or just a simple acknowledgement of his presence.

“You know,” he says, and he continues pressing kisses up Sherlock’s spine as he speaks, “it’s rude to leave your partner to wake up alone the night before your wedding.”

Sherlock just hums again, and John smiles slightly, tightening his arms.

“Not changing your mind, are you?” he teases.

“Bit late for that, don’t you think?” Sherlock asks dryly, and John pinches his side gently.

He can see Sherlock’s small smile in the reflection of the window.  “I couldn’t sleep.  My head was…too full.”

John frowns.  “Too full of what?”

Sherlock gently sets his violin down, and his arms come up to cover John’s.  He squeezes John’s hands.  “You, of course.”  

John’s heart seems to expand in his chest, and he opens his mouth to say something—he doesn’t know  _what_ , but  _something—_ but before he can get the words out Sherlock’s smile is fading and he’s saying, “I kept thinking if I went to sleep that I’d wake up in the morning and find out this was all a dream.”

John sucks in a sharp breath and pulls back a little.  “Sherlock—”

But Sherlock speaks over him, his voice getting more and more agitated. “There’s this ring on my finger, and you were obviously right  _there_  beside me, I could touch you, hear you breathing, feel your heartbeat—”

“You do know you’re not supposed to wear the ring until  _after_  the wedding, right?”

“—but I was so  _sure_  I’d wake up and it would be seven years ago, and I’d be alone, and I  _knew_  it was illogical, it’s  _still_  illogical, and you know I  _hate_  illogical, it’s so—so—”

“Illogical?”

“Yes!”

“Sherlock, listen—”

“And I came out here because I thought the violin might help, but then I saw the snow, and I got distracted, and when my mind stopped reeling in circles I realized something.”

John smoothes his hands up and down Sherlock’s sides.  “What did you realize?”

Sherlock leans forward some, pressing his forehead against the cool glass of the window.  “I realized that this couldn’t possibly be a dream.”

John chuckles and presses another kiss to one of Sherlock’s shoulders, speaking against his skin.  “I could’ve told you that, love.”

“No,” Sherlock says urgently, and suddenly he’s turned around, his hands tight on John’s shoulders and his eyes burning.  “No, John, you don’t understand.  This could  _never_  have been a dream because there’s no way my mind, as brilliant as it is, could ever have created you.”

John stares up into Sherlock’s over-bright eyes, his mind suddenly blank except for the random, completely insane thought that maybe this was a conversation he should be wearing more than just pants for.  He licks his lips, trying to moisten his suddenly dry mouth.

“Do you…do you want to explain that some more?”

Sherlock lets out a long breath and practically slumps forward as if he’s suddenly just been drained of energy, and then he’s pressing his forehead to John’s and closing his eyes. “John, I don’t say this to be self-deprecating or to elicit pity.  I say this because it’s true, and I need you to hear it.”

John tries to speak, but the words don’t come out so he just nods, trusting that Sherlock will feel it.

Sherlock takes a deep breath.  “From a very young age, I was convinced that no one—barring my parents and Mycroft, in his own way—would ever love me.”

John manages to unstick his tongue from the top of his mouth.  “ _Sherlock—_ ”

“No, John, let me finish.  I was—I pretended it didn’t bother me, and eventually I pretended for so long that I really did stop caring.  I wore my whole body as armor, and that was the person, the—the  _machine_  you met that day in Bart’s Hospital.”

“You’re  _not_  a machine, god, Sherlock, I—”

“Shh, just…I’m no good at this, John, stop interrupting, or I’ll never get it out.”

John bites his lip, but his arms curl up around Sherlock’s shoulders, and he smoothes down the flyaway curls at his nape.  “I’m sorry, go on.”

Sherlock takes another deep breath and plunges on.  “The day I cured your limp, the day you shot the cabbie for me, that was…I thought I was the clever one, I thought I was fixing you, and maybe I was, but it was actually the other way around, wasn’t it?   _You_  were fixing  _me._ This whole time, you’ve been fixing me, and it was so  _subtle_ , John, you did it so slowly and so steadily that I didn’t even realize it was happening until it was done, and I was so irreversibly in love with you, and that’s impressive John, to slip something like that by me, that’s incredible.  

“And I thought at first that it was just my own fault, this whole loving you business, that I’d let my guard down and relaxed too much.  But it’s your fault, too, isn’t it?  Because you love me, you’ve said so numerous times, although I still find it difficult to believe sometimes, but you say you do, and so all these years you’ve been loving me, you  _loved_  me for so long, and I was too sodding stupid to see it, but it was still there, surrounding me and changing me, and it isn’t logical, John, it’s so illogical that it hurts my brain just thinking about it, but it’s  _there_ , and don’t you see?   _That’s_  why this could never be a dream because I’d never once in my life dreamt that someone like you could exist, someone who  _loves_  me the way you do, and I can’t even—mmph!”

Sherlock’s monologue comes to an abrupt halt as John, unable to stand the tightness growing in his chest with every word, shuts him up the only way he knows how, with lips and tongue.  The kiss is too hard, uncontrolled, but John doesn’t care because his heart is so fucking full that it feels like it’s about to burst out of his chest, and he’s pressing Sherlock back against the window, ignoring the small sound Sherlock makes because of the cold glass against his bare skin in favor of eliciting an entirely different sort of sound out of him by digging his fingers into those bony hips.  

“ _John_ ,” he gasps, and his head falls back against the glass with a thump as John kisses down his throat.  “John, I—”

“No,” John growls, pulling back some, one hand reaching up to cover Sherlock’s mouth.  “God, just…stop talking, you  _sod_ , and let me kiss you until you can’t feel anything else, do you fucking understand?”

He watches as Sherlock’s throat works around a swallow, and then there’s a hesitant nod, and John pulls his hand away, wrapping it around the back of Sherlock’s neck and pulling him down for another bruising kiss.  And Sherlock’s arms circle around John now, hands roaming up and down his back and his sides, and John is pulling him impossibly closer, saying, “I love you, I love you, god, I love you  _so much_ ” against his lips, and Sherlock is saying, almost brokenly, “I know, I  _know_.”

And eventually they’re tumbling back into bed, and when John presses into Sherlock he leans down and kisses him so softly and so earnestly that something very close to a sob gets caught in Sherlock’s throat, and he says, “John,  _please_ ,” in a choked voice, and John rocks in and out of him slowly, so slowly, and says, “Shhh, I’ve got you, sweetheart.”

Afterwards they’re lying there, sweat-slick and sated, and Sherlock has his head on John’s chest, listening to his still pounding heart.  John trails his fingers lightly up and down Sherlock’s back, his other arm behind his head as he gazes up at the ceiling.

“We have to get up soon,” he says quietly after a little while.

“Only if we want to be on time,” Sherlock says, voice slightly muffled against John’s shoulder, and John grins.

“I think it’s considered bad manners to be late to your own wedding.”

Sherlock lifts his head and wrinkles his nose.  “Since when have I ever had _good_ manners?”

John’s grin widens, and he presses a kiss to the tip of that nose.  “Good point.”

The corner of Sherlock’s mouth lifts, and he lays his head back down against John’s chest.  John continues to trace patterns into his back in silence for another few minutes before he finally works up the nerve to say what he needs to say, what Sherlock deserves to hear.

“You fixed me, too, you know,” he says, his voice quiet, and he feels Sherlock go very still against him.  "And I don’t just mean my leg.  I mean…everything.  You—you brought the color back into my life.”  He winces.  “God, that sounds so bloody cheesy.  But that’s the way it feels.  Everything was so…dead when I got back, and then you were suddenly just… _there_ , being so real and  _alive_  and so—so  _you_.  And I just…wanted you to know that.  That you fixed me, too. That I owe you…everything.”

He shuts up and bites his lip, waiting for any response from Sherlock, but there’s only silence and stillness for what feels like an eternity.  Finally,  _finally_ , Sherlock seems to come back to life, and he raises his head, meeting John’s eyes with a very serious expression, and John holds his breath as Sherlock opens his mouth to speak.

“Does this mean we don’t have to say our vows later?”

And John just stares at him for a minute as the words sink in, and then he’s laughing so hard his ribs ache, and Sherlock’s expression breaks, and he’s laughing, too, and later that day they enter into the rest of their lives together in a fit of giggles and lingering kisses.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Reviews are loved and appreciated. And if you enjoyed it, feel free to check out my [writing tag](http://vitruvianwatson.tumblr.com/tagged/liz-writes-things) on [tumblr](http://vitruvianwatson.tumblr.com). :)


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